Friday, October 26, 2012

procession of the ghouls.

something that's really great about the upper west side/morningside heights/area we live in is that there are actually a lot of really cool cathedrals peppered around our neighborhood. one of these is st. john's cathedral, & every year around halloween-time they put on the ultra-cool "procession of the ghouls." here's what it is: everyone gathers in the huge cathedral at night (which is kinda creepy!). the lights are dimmed, there's an excited energy all around, & then the scary organ music starts. after that's over, they launch right into a black & white silent horror film. tonight we watched "nosferatu" with live organ accompaniment! it was SO FUN. ben & i were saying afterwards how silent films from the olden days seem just kind of quaint now, but we still had a blast watching it. after that, the film screen lifts, everything goes silent, & from out of the smoke emerges the most scary/beautiful ghouls you've ever seen. their costumes are intricate & wonderful, & they silently walk slowly down the aisle with nothing but the organ creepily playing. pictures below!

this chilly cellist was there to greet everyone as we walked in. he was actually really good!:

the cathedral, pre-show:

nothing says "halloween" better than a 1920s dracula story in black & white. the picture below captures the wife about to sacrifice herself to save her village & her husband who was too dumb to listen to everyone warning him not to go to count dracula's castle, which brought about all their problems in the first place.

smoke gathering after the movie!

this huge skeleton was swinging back & forth in the aisle.

here come the ghouls! they would walk up really close to people & it was spooky. we had aisle seats & had a perfect close-up of the beautiful costumes. a few of the ghouls got pretty close!

you guys, i CAN'T believe i forgot to bring our nice camera to this & so we ended up having to use my phone. which did NOT yield pictures as nice as we would have liked. oh well. have to work with what you got, right? like this guy. he was working it:

okay sorry this one is blurry, but it almost makes it scarier?

(my pitiful excuse for our bad cell-phone pictures)

again, blurry, but you get the (blurry) picture.

the procession went on for about 30 minutes! the ghouls kept

coming & coming. oh my GOSH it was so fun.

close-up!

we are so, SO glad we went to this. perhaps it'll be a new halloween tradition?

& now, a few post-procession pictures:

a shot of the outside of the cathedral:

one of the huge front doors:

who could say no to posing with such scary lighting?

creepy cathedral choir seats...well, normally they're not creepy, but they kinda were tonight:

a mini-gargoyle type dude chilling on the corner of the choir seats:

more scary lighting pictures:

if you carved our faces on jack-o-lanterns, they might look something like this:

in closing, let's hear it for a house of worship embracing spookiness so openly!